Toxic Signs On Rise In Great Lakes

September 18, 1988|By Casey Bukro, Chicago Tribune.

TORONTO — A new study says foods commonly eaten in Ontario are tainted with traces of pesticides and cancer-causing dioxin, the latest evidence of growing concern by Canadian and United States scientists that living in the Great Lakes region can be hazardous to health.

The scientists also agree that the link between illness and toxic pollution is one of the most poorly studied public health issues in the heavily industrialized region.

The new Ontario study, reported by the provincial government Thursday, found low levels of toxic chemicals in meat and poultry, wheat, milk, eggs, fruit, and vegetables produced in the U.S. and Canada.

James Bradley, Ontario`s environment minister, said the dioxins in food were discovered in the parts-per-trillion range, not considered a significant risk to human health. But he argued that any concentration of a potentially cancer-causing substance is not acceptable.

``When you get any contaminants in food, whether it`s here or abroad, then we all have to make a determined effort to eliminate those contaminants and those sources,`` Bradley said.

After decades of global concern over environmental pollution, the final frontier is what it all means to human health.

``Ultimately, what we need to find out is what happens to old fish eaters,`` said Dr. Harold Humphrey of Michigan`s Center for Environmental Health Sciences.

Health studies have shown that pesticides and toxic chemicals in Great Lakes fish lodge in human body fat. As a result, Great Lakes states regularly issue advisories on which fish are considered safe or unsafe to eat.

The few studies of the human health consequence of exposure to this contamination in food, air and water in the region have been controversial.

The most explosive was released late last year by a pair of Canadian scientists who reported unusually high rates of cancer, birth disorders and circulatory diseases on the Canadian side of the Great Lakes.

``Sometimes what I saw frightened me a little,`` said Tom Muir, a researcher who began collecting information 10 years ago on the economic impact of disease.

Muir and his partner, Anne Sudar, summarized the results of the Great Lakes health studies and concluded that fish and wildlife have been hurt by toxic chemicals and that ``people are being affected as well.``

Canada`s top federal environmental agency, Environment Canada, released the report but called it conjectural. Still, American and Canadian scientists are calling the Muir-Sudar report potentially a landmark work, if for no other reason than it entered largely uncharted waters that warrant scientific investigation.

Citizen groups like Great Lakes United in Buffalo, N.Y., have lauded the work.

``We`d better start understanding how humans are impacted by the environment, by what we do to the environment,`` said its executive director, David Miller.

Warnings that the Great Lakes might be an unhealthy place to live have been sounded repeatedly:

- In 1985, the U.S. National Research Council and the Royal Society of Canada reported that people living in the Great Lakes region are exposed to appreciably more toxic chemicals than residents elsewhere in North America.

- A pioneering 1984 study by Wayne State University researchers in Detroit found that infants born to women who ate Lake Michigan fish contaminated with toxic polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) had developed mental abnormalities. One of the researchers said the infants were sluggish and their movements were unbalanced.

- A similar study by the University of Wisconsin in 1984, in Sheboygan, found that exposure to high PCB levels in the womb produced infants suffering more from colds, earaches and the flu, but no lasting effects.

- An earlier market-basket study in Toronto found that many fish are tainted with toxic chemicals such as pesticides. It reported in 1985 that 86 percent of the toxic chemicals in consumers` bodies came from food.

The U.S. and Canada in 1978 signed an agreement to clean up toxic pollution in the Great Lakes, but so far little headway has been made.

``There is nobody in the Great Lakes region doing health effects research,`` said Dr. Alfred Beeton, U.S. chairman of the Science Advisory Board for the International Joint Commission, a U.S.-Canadian agency empowered by treaty to protect the lakes.

``It takes funding and long-term studies,`` he said. ``We don`t do that in this country.``

His Canadian counterpart Dr. Jack Vallentyne, finds a similar problem in Canada.

``It is significant to what extent we do not see human health information,`` he said. ``We`ve got to turn this around.``

The health effects of Great Lakes contamination are poorly studied for several reasons, scientists said.

``We really have not developed the necessary research tools,`` said Dr. Katherine Davies, Toronto`s municipal environmental protection manager.